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I've worked around the circle of fifths in the initial walking bass pattern. The given fingering works just more than half way around. For Db, Ab, Eb, Bb, and F, because of where the black keys lie, it feels more comfortable to change the fingering for IV. For all of those except F, it also feels more comfortable to change the fingering for the turnaround.

All the practicing I've been doing over the past year with major triads is paying off, because as I worked around the circle of fifths, my LH just seemed to know where the notes were.

Rocket, I agree with you- and fortunately my husband was really into blues well before I was and he's got a great collection. Recently we've been listeing to Memphis Slim, and his stuff really is fabulous!

Pianostudent88 ---- I am really enjoying all that you're writing - I've been super busy this week so haven't replied in any detail, but I have experienced many of the things you are talking about and it is very exciting to see you reporting on these new skills.

I truly felt that I started hearing music differently a couple of years ago when I started on piano - now I feel I've hit a new and different (and richer) level of listening skills. Ah, the adventure continues!

Weiyan..... where are you?

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

Did you feel relaxed playing it?I find I still get a bit tense tying to keep the focus. I wonder how many months it will take for this sort of thing to feel more comfortable for me? We shall see!

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

Accomplishing smooth chord changes is always a significant challenge. If they are not easy, practice them until they are easy.

Suggestions:

1. Go Slower. As slow as necessary so you can make the changes 100% smoothly.

2. Practice playing the chords in groups of two, in the sequence in which they occur. Here, play one of the first chord, (The "one") then one of the second, (The "four") then back to one of the first. Cycle that back and forth. That is the most common change sequence in the song, so do it slowly over and over to get your hand very comfortable.

3. Then Practice the "one" chord followed by the "five" chord, which is another chord sequence. Then do the "five" followed by the "four".

4. Go slower. The #1 mistake people make is to go too fast. You are learning (practicing) it. Playing it at performance tempo is done after it is learned. I know, slow is hard to do, but do it anyways.

rocket88, thank you for this advice. I found it very helpful tonight and I already feel a difference in my playing. I may be going to be a tortoise, but I am going to be a tortoise with the best darn walking bass and off-on RH possible, in all keys.

I'll report in in three months when I start to learn my next tortoise skill .

It feels really good to slow down and focus on building my skills step by step.

It is interesting that sooner or later we all come to acknowledge the need to go slower.I think what is ironic is that we build up some skills - which means we can go faster with the things we know...... then we start on new material (and in this case a whole new style) and we think we should be able to have a decent level of speed. But no. It is not so.

Nice to have you around as our coach Rocket88!

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

I thought it would take longer, but four days of slow careful practice on just walking bass and on-off in just C, and I've got it solid. Then three days more and now I've got the rest of the white keys. They came really fast after the foundation in C. Now I've started the black keys, continuing clockwise around the circle of fifths, so my first black key is Db. Back to slow careful practice because the fingering is different, but after just one session of that, Db is feeling pretty good.

Today I discovered that I can now keep the beat going when I screw up. Screw up the RH, and LH just keeps walking up and down. Screw up the LH notes, and I can keep pounding out some kind of LH notes on the beat until I can find my way back to the correct notes. I couldn't do this when I started.

Had to do some adjustments: my LH finger 2 was getting strained from reaching from IV back to I, so I'm retraining myself to keep my LH hand shape closed instead of extended as I make those moves. OK to reach between thumb and 2, not so OK to reach more than small distances between any of 2-5.

Getting strain in my right side of my back; not sure where that's coming from. Experimenting with wiggling around in the bench as I play, to try to find where I'm holding tension. I've never experienced this before, so I believe it's something linked to the repetitive chords in the RH, which I'm not used to.

I have very much enjoyed playing just rhythm, but I'm starting to hear how it would sound even better with a melody, so once I've finished the circle of fifths with the black keys, I'll be eager for the next couple of pages of the book.

I'm a real believer in the value of lessons, but one thing that's nice about doing this on my own is that I can go entirely at my own pace. No feeling of self-imposed pressure to make a certain amount of progress in preparation for my next lesson. It's really nice to have the book as the teacher though, because this is not the sort of thing I personally would be able to pick up from listening. Maybe once I've learned the book, I'll have the experience to start to be able to pick up new ideas by ear, but that's just not a strong suit of mine now, and especially not for being able to pick up enough to put a whole piece together.

Clarifying tiny technical point: F# is a black key, but I'm playing it with the same fingering as the white keys, so I'm counting it as a white key above: C G D A E B F#.

But that reminds me, I need to practice it thinking of it as Gb, too. Maybe eventually I'll just think of all the keys as just patterns of black and white notes, but for me, the names of the notes are fused with the keys (both physical keys, and what key I'm playing in). So for example when playing blues in F# major, IV is a C# triad (not Db) and its notes as I play them are C# E# G# (not C# F G#). Some of the note names are dropping away: for example I'm now automatically knowing that the triad based on the first of the set of three black keys is the three-black-key triad (instead of thinking,as I had to when I was learning it, "F# A# C#"). And I'm starting to feel the turnarounds as patterns of black and white keys, and distances, rather than specifically as the names of the notes in the key. So maybe I'm moving away from needing the note name as part of my linkage to what I'm playing, at least sometimes. This is interesting.

Nice work Pianostudent88 and Weiyan. I think working round the circle of fifths is a great idea.

I'm a bit "behind" in progress here because a) I started working more hours! (good!) and b) I'm still very much in the "get to know you stage" of working with my teacher. (also good) - I know I could be doing it on my own, but I'm also trying to get up to speed up on general scales and arpeggios (he has to see what I can do) and he really wants to focus on technique, so he has me working on some familiar pieces that I want to improve. (I've seen some great progress in giving nuance of sound to a few pieces and it is very rewarding.)

I have not given up on the blues, ....I'm just delaying it for a bit.

I will probably wait a few more weeks before getting back into it. In the meantime I'm going to follow your posts and see what you're up to!

Cheers!

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

Hi Weiyan, I remember listening to your earlier version.I can see - or rather hear! - the work you've been putting into this one. I think it is as challening to play this kind of bass with a melody as it is to play things from the classics that have the Albertini bass under a melody - it takes great focus, not to mention the coordination!

Good for you!

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

Hi Weiyan, I remember listening to your earlier version.I can see - or rather hear! - the work you've been putting into this one. I think it is as challening to play this kind of bass with a melody as it is to play things from the classics that have the Albertini bass under a melody - it takes great focus, not to mention the coordination!

Good for you!

The LH rhythm is not easy. The second beat rest at first 2/3 time, then play a staccato and go to 3rd beat.

Hi everybody! I got the book on Friday. It looks really good and well thought out. I just fiddled around with the first few pages and was having great fun. I will try to post more when I have had a bit more time with the book. This is going to be fun to work through.

I've finished working around the circle of fifths with the basic pattern. That's the first three pages. Now for the next four pages. These introduce, for the RH, first and second inversion chords, playing a melody, and improvising a melody. For the LH, three new patterns.

That's seven new skills, and I want to work around the circle of fifths for each one. If I take one day per skill per key, that's 7 x 12 = 84 days = 12 weeks. Ok, see y'all in 3 months .

I'm not sure if I'm nuts for wanting to take this so slowly and methodically. If I didn't work around the circle of fifths, it would take less time of course. But I don't want to get locked into only being able to play in a few keys. Plus the circle of fifths practice gives me lots and lots of practice at the skills, so they get really solid.

PS88 - you are being very methodical and I'm quite sure your skills are increasing dramatically as a result! I wonder if I should do something similar. But the book looks so interesting I'm very tempted to skips parts. I will have to hold back and make sure I really understand each skill and concept.

I think this book is going to be a lot of fun! I am planning on recording the first few pieces this weekend. My favorite so far is Blues Thirds or Thirds Blues ((can't remember the exact name!). I can't play the triplets with the cool LH part yet but I can play the rest of it. It's very fun. Stay tuned and I'll post in the next day or so.

Weiyan I couldn't find your Blueberry Hill in the link you provided. Can you double check it? Thanks.

I'm happy to see you folks moving along!I've been busy getting to know my new teacher and working on some specific technical aspects of my playing - I do hope to plunge back into this book soon!!!

Weiyan I couldn't access your music either?

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90